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Department of Political Science

Alan Wiseman

Chair
Professor
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair
Professor of Law (by courtesy)

Professor Wiseman's research agenda addresses the impact of political institutions on political actors' behavior and strategies, focusing substantively on legislative, electoral, and bureaucratic and regulatory politics in the United States. He is the author of The Internet Economy: Access, Taxes, and Market Structure (Brookings Institution Press, 2000), and has published research in journals including the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Journal of Theoretical Politics. His current projects focus on the causes and consequences of legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress and other American state legislatures.  Prior joining the faculty of Vanderbilt University, he served on the faculty of The Ohio State University, where he directed the undergraduate public policy minor in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He has also been a visiting Associate Professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management; and before entering the academy he served as a visiting economic scholar with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.  He is co-director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking: www.thelawmakers.org

Representative publications

  • Hitt, Matthew P., Craig Volden, and Alan E. Wiseman. 2017. “Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness.” American Journal of Political Science. 61(3): 575-590.
  • Volden, Craig, and Alan E. Wiseman. Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers. 2014. Cambridge University Press
  • Volden, Craig, Alan E. Wiseman, and Dana E. Wittmer. 2013. “When are Women More Effective Lawmakers than Men?” American Journal of Political Science. 57(2): 326-347.
  • Wiseman, Alan E. 2009. “Delegation and Positive-Sum Bureaucracies.” Journal of Politics. 71(3): 998-1014.
  • Wiseman, Alan E., and John R. Wright. 2008. “The Legislative Median and Partisan Policy.” Journal of Theoretical Politics. 20(1): 5-29.
  • View Curriculum Vitae